2 Éclair Murder Read Online Free PDF Page B

sold day-old pastries. Everything had to be fresh.  

    She had a idea. She would just have to find out who had purchased two pistachio éclairs from their cash register.  
    After thanking Ralph for his time, she grabbed her coat and immediately headed back to the patisserie.  

CHAPTER 7
    The employees at Damour had done a good job of getting the patisserie back in shape. When Clémence walked in through the door, the counters were filled halfway up with fresh macarons, éclairs, tarts, croissants and their other signature desserts and pastries. The staff for the evening shift had already arrived, and Caroline said that they could reopen soon.  

    Clémence asked Caroline and Marie to help her dig up all the purchases and transaction information on their cash register before the store opened.

    “I want to know who bought two pistachio éclairs that morning,” Clémence said. “If you can recall their names or faces that would be great, but either way, I’ll take the time of the transaction and go back to our surveillance guy to match the time the purchase was made to the video, so we can put a face to the purchase.”  

    Caroline punched in her manager code on the touch screen of the cash register. With a few more punches of the keys, she was able to print out a long receipt of all the transactions made on Thursday. While it printed, Clémence turned to Marie.

    “Do you always choose the right flavors when you’re ringing up, say a pistachio éclair versus a chocolate éclair?”  

    “Yes,” she replied. “We all do. It’s how we determine which flavors are more popular.”  

    “Which éclair flavors are more popular anyway?” Clémence   asked.

    “The salted caramel and the chocolate are neck and neck,” said Marie. “But pistachio and passion fruit are popular as well.”  

    “Are there any customers who buy two pistachio éclairs on a regular basis?”  

    “Hmm, I don’t know. Sometimes it happens, I suppose, but people buy all sorts of combinations. It’s hard to keep track.”  

    When the receipts finished printing, Clémence turned her attention to it. Numerous éclairs had been bought that morning, but they weren’t as popular as croissants, pain au chocolats and other pastries and breads for the morning crowd. Single éclairs had been bought, but two?  

    After she went through all the purchases, she found out that there had only been three transactions that included two pistachios purchased at the same time.  

    Clémence called Ralph again, saying she was coming back and needed more of his help.

    ***

    Ralph opened the door, but he had changed clothes. Instead of his casual sweats, he was wearing khakis, a striped blue dress shirt and brown dress shoes. Gone was his facial hair, and his hair had been combed.  

    He smiled and a dimple appeared on his left cheek that Clémence hadn’t noticed before when he had the scruffy facial hair.  

    “I decided to go home and change,” he said.  

    “What made you do that?” Clémence   asked.

    “In case another beautiful woman comes in to see me today,” he said, looking into her blue eyes.  

    Clémence blushed.  

    He did look handsome all cleaned up. He stood up straighter too and Clémence could tell that he was in good shape telling from what his well-fitted dress shirt revealed.

    She hadn’t paid much attention to him before, but she appreciated his effort in looking good for her. She was in a white oversized cashmere sweater that hung nicely on her thin frame, black python-print leggings and black ankle boots. The outfit was chic enough, but not exactly something to inspire men. She couldn’t take his flirtations seriously however. Many men were incorrigible flirts.

    She got down to business and asked him for help in finding the footage for the three transaction times.

    As he had before, Ralph found her account on his system, and rewound the footage for the first transaction, at 8:13am. It was a little boy,